I recently spoke to Chris Norman about doing a work study at this year’s Boxwood festival, and it has given me the incentive to begin playing again–I’ve not been playing for at least a year now, due to mountain bikes and moving.
Anyway, I’m having a difficult time knowing where to begin again. I had success with Grey Larson’s book a couple years ago, and was thinking about going back to that, but part of me feels lost. I’m not a beginner, nor by any stretch of the imagination am I proficient, but I don’t really know where to start back up. Also, I’m having conflicting feelings about only playing Irish music–I’d like to branch out, but don’t really know how.
Has anyone had difficulties getting over the hump/inertia of lack of playing? Also, I feel like I’ll never, “arrive” with regards to playing. Something tells me this is common, and that the answer is lots of playing, practice, listening, etc…
Thoughts?
Matthew
The concept of “arriving”, musically, is foreign to me. Listen a lot, play a lot, try playing whatever ITM, folk, pop, jazz or classical tune pops into your head.
In other words, you’re already at your destination, you just need to improve your skills. If, OTH, you have “serious” intentions, then you need to focus, specialize and get some real structure into your practice sessions. I can’t advise much about that, though!
I guess I am fortunate, in that I have always enjoyed playing, and have played just about every day during my many years journey. For most folks, a short time every day will result in more progress than going whole hog for several hours one day a week.
For whistles there is little excuse because they can be taken anywhere. Portable models are smaller, plastic models are near indestructible. One of my whistle cases is a hollowed out bike pump. Someone who rides his/her bike a lot, could velcro strap that to their bike and play when they take a break.
I play very little ITM. I mostly write my own tunes.
IMO, there is no “arriving”. It’s all about the journey.
Matt, when I first bought the Healy from you, I played a lot, trying to get into the groove. For a while I thought I knew what I was doing. Then I learned the truth, got a little down on myself, and didn’t play for a while. Then later, I came around, and realized that it is indeed about the journey. So I started playing again. There is no end of the road. I think of it (“it” being that ephemeral target “sound” or “feeling” or whatever) as being like the horizon. I can always see it, and as I approach it, it is constantly moving. It’s always the same distance away, yet I can never get there, so the best I can do is be here, and keep moving towards that horizon.
I appreciate the replies here. I do buy that bit of advice regarding playing for shorter periods everyday, as opposed to once a week–sometimes I find that I burn myself out when I try to play “all at once”, or to get better that way.
Anyhow, I’m really excited to hopefully be going to Boxwood this year. That’s going to give me a boost, I imagine.
Regarding playing your own tunes, I like the idea of that, but I have a difficult time going “all the way” with a tune. Do you write then down BillChin?
Thanks again,
Matthew
I like your post, it’s honest and earnest. Here’s a thought: who are we playing for ? ourselves, other musicians, an audience? My very initial experiences were in Ireland. There was no ego involved, I couldn’t play a tune then. I was a young guy in a pub, soaking up the great environment, enjoying the music. We Chiff and Fipplers can be very analytical. But notice the next time you are out playing. Who is really driving the music? I would say the people who love music for music’s sake. Whether a polka, reel , or whatever. They don’t play for anyone. They play for the love of the music. My advice: find a session where you are happy. I guess I’m lucky. Being in New England ( The northernmost,easternmost 6 states in the US) I have a choice of a few sessions. Some embody the spirit I’ve mentioned, some sessions are competetive, and some are just not energetic. Luckily , I have a choice.I don’t know how Shanghai is. It’s a big city. How many sessions are there? Could you potentially start your own?
baggins_21,
there is an element of, what I would call, seduction
in engaging one self in daily playing,
even when one may seemingly not be so inclined.
Having a rigid practice schedule or a must do repertoire of pieces approach does not work for me on low days.
My current tools of seduction are
a nice little electronic drone box which gives me a choice of 12 tonics combined with either their respective 4th, 5th or natural 7th intervals
an electronic tabla rhythm box with 60 different rhythms on it ( a kind of glorified metronome).
So if I am feelin a little flat I just turn the drone on a low pitch note and pick one of my larger flutes and play, improvise, real slow exploring whatever mode/raag scale that I can from that particular root note on that particular flute. At best I will break out into new compositions and at worst I will be doing 2 hours of inspired tone practice. Worst can’t get much beter than that.
For instance< I might set the drone to A (dyad of A and E actually) and with my Irish flute slowly explore A Sawmill Mode. It doesn’t take long for the feeling to come and then the energy is there for many other things.
I find that playing within a drone ambience makes even the most simple scale practice a musically emotional experience. Paltas are fun to do with drone.
I record them using a Sony voice recorder. Once in a great while I will transcribe them to sheet music or ABCs. However, my skills in that area are limited so it takes a big effort for me to do so.
Like many whistle players, I learn best by ear, so having an audio recording is the best kind of archive for me.
Reading sheet music or ABCs is no picnic for me. Generally it takes me much less time and less effort to write a new tune than to learn one from sheet music.
Talasiga, that’s a very interesting way to practice. I agree that fighting my nature by forcing myself to try to play is probably not the best in the long run–that seems like more of a freer way to practice during down times.
M
Just listen to music till you find something that you really really can’t wait to play yourself. That tends to move one past the thinking stage and onto the doing.